This section introduces aspects that may facilitate better understanding of the present disclosure. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
With the quick development of various Smartphone applications and machine to machine (M2M) applications, mobile network operators are marginalizing as dump “pipe” providers in the mobile internet era. Therefore, most network operators are trying to explore a new business model and increase revenue by providing users with various value added services (VAS services), such as security protection, anti-advertisement, video optimization, Web cache, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) header enrichment, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/HTTP optimization and the like. Usually, one or more VAS services are applied to user's traffic based on different business considerations. It is not necessary that all VAS services are applied to all users' traffic at any condition. Meanwhile, with the inspiration of Cloud technology's success in the Information Technology (IT) world, the telecom industry is considering to provide Cloud based network services by Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) initiative at European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). The NFV technology will make it more flexible and efficient to provide and operate virtual mobile network services, as well as VAS services, which will accelerate the growth of the virtual network operator business.
Traditionally, the topology of VAS enablers associated with an Access Point Name (APN) is usually static, even fixed and chained. Adding/deleting a VAS enabler or changing the logic configuration of a service chain means a change of the network topology, which may result in many issues. The emerging of Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology is widely recognized as a potential approach to steer user's traffic across different VAS enablers in a flexible way. In the context of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) mobile networks and virtual mobile network operators, it is important for the SDN technology to flexibly steer traffic for native users of a mobile network operator and traffic for users of its associated virtual network operator, for example, by taking into account preferences of both the Public Land Mobile Network (PLMN) operator and the virtual PLMN operator.
FIG. 1A and FIG. 1B illustrate two possible use cases of the cooperation between a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) and its associated Mobile Network Operator (MNO) on VAS provision.
FIG. 1A shows a first use case, i.e. MNO based VAS provision. In this use case, the virtual operator MVNO A1 operates its own network, including a radio access network (RAN) and a core network (CN) but doesn't own any physical service provisioning infrastructure resources. The MVNO A1 provides normal network services to its users but doesn't provide VAS services. The VAS services are provided by its associated mobile network operator MNO A. Based on a business agreement between the MNO A and MVNO A1, users' traffic from the network operated by the MVNO A1 may be steered within the VAS provisioning network, e.g. an SGi local area network (SGi-LAN), operated by the MNO A and applied with various VAS services by the MNO A.
FIG. 1B shows a second use case, i.e. joint VAS provision. In the NFV and Cloud era, it is highly possible that a mobile network operator, e.g. MNO A, may provide part of infrastructure resources to a third party mobile virtual operator. The virtual operator, e.g. MVNO A1, operates its own network, including a RAN and a CN and may provide both normal network services and VAS services. In this use case, the MVNO A1 and MNO A jointly provide VAS services to both of their user groups. Based on a business agreement between the MNO A and MVNO A1, users' traffic from the network operated by the MVNO A1 may be steered to the VAS provisioning network, e.g. SGi-LAN, operated by the MNO A and applied with specific VAS services by the MNO A, while user's traffic from the network operated by the MNO A may also be steered to the VAS provisioning network operated by the MVNO A1 (not shown) and applied with specific VAS services by the MVNO A1.
In the practical network environment, a typical scenario is that a mobile network operator can provide different VAS services to its native users as well as users of its associated virtual network operator, while the policies on VAS provision for different user groups may be different. For example, the mobile network operator may differentiate a native user and a user of the associated virtual network operator when provisioning VAS services. Some VAS services are only applied to native users, while other VAS services are applied to both native users and virtual operator's users. Therefore, there is a need for a mechanism that may steer traffic of different users within a VAS provisioning network so as to satisfy different preferences or requirements of network operators and the users.
Regarding traffic steering in a Gi/SGi-LAN, there is an ongoing discussion in 3GPP. Currently, related use cases and requirements were captured by SA1 at TR 3GPP TR 22.808 V13.0.0, and discussions on possible solutions and architectures to potential issues haven't been initiated in SA2. So far, there are only a few disclosed solutions for basic flexible traffic steering. As to traffic steering for virtual network operator users, there is not any discussion.
In ETSI, the NFV frame has been defined, but little discussion about traffic steering for mobile virtual network operators.
In some communications companies, there have already been studies and trials on SDN based service chaining over mobile networks. For example, flexible traffic steering for mobile network users has been developed based on the following information: user's subscriptions, users' traffic destinations, network performance/quality of service (QoS), and application names/identities (IDs). But so far, there is little consideration about traffic steering for mobile virtual network scenarios. The existing traffic steering solutions can't be applied to mobile virtual network operator users.